The present invention relates generally to the field of software and in particular to a system and method of window navigation in a GUI environment.
The use of Graphical User Interface (GUI) environments is well known in the computer arts, as evidenced by the popularity of the Microsoft Windows® and Apple Computer OS X® operating systems. In these GUI environments, applications run in separate windows, any one of which may be active at a time (also referred to as selected, or receiving the window focus). A window may be selected in a variety of ways. In some GUI environments, placing a cursor on the window for a predetermined time may apply the window focus to that window. In other GUI environments, placing a cursor on the window combined with clicking a mouse key (referred to herein as mouse-selecting) applies the window focus to that window (in some GUI environments, the user may select between these alternatives). In some GUI environments, such as the Microsoft Windows® system, a window may be selected by mouse-selecting an icon associated with the window from the system tray, or bar located at the bottom or to one side of the GUI environment. The Microsoft Windows® system additionally allows a user to cycle the window focus successively from one window to the next by entering the ALT-TAB keystroke combination. However, this method of changing the window focus is limited to cycling through the entire set of open windows, in the order in which the windows were created. The user has no easy way to designate a specific group of windows through which he may wish to cycle the window focus.